15 million swimmers have been released.

First, Hi Lyz's friend Beth!! Thanks for stopping by!

The IUI was done this morning. As usual Dr. F was a freak. I don't want to share what he said to freak me out this time because, well, it's gross, and I know I have a couple of male readers that really don't want to hear what he said.

We did get to meet the other half of our future child today! Amy (the awesome lap tech) brought us back to check out good ole' 884's swimmers under the microscope. Totally cool. Well, a little creepy too, but totally cool!

It is weird to think that in two hours the swimmers will be dead. In two hours I will either be pregnant or not, but I don't get to know the answer until the 13th. Sigh. Yet again I say I will not pee on a stick until the day of the blood test...and yet again I doubt that will actually happen. This time even Jenn and Lyz laughed when I said it and promised that they'd have me peeing on a stick by the end of next week.

Now, this is where I show a little of the real me. I always wanted to be a bad girl. I can't really be one, it just isn't in me. But a little bit of the bad Heidi showed up last night.

When I was little my dad told me the story of Orion, you know the constellation, and I loved it. My dog growing up was even named after the great hunter. I would sit in my backyard late at night, without my parents knowing I was out of bed, and lay on our picnic table and tell Orion all of my secrets. From silly teenage angst stuff to real problems I had going on in my head. I still talk to him, quite a bit. And this may sound strange, but I get really upset when he's not in the sky. He wasn't there in January when I needed to share things with him the most. I became angry at him, and Jenn can testify the night I started screaming at the sky in the middle of the night because I was angry that he wasn't there when I needed him.

Then I felt guilty. Yes, I felt guilty for yelling at a constellation, a bunch of stars in the sky. I still kinda am angry that he isn't always there. Well, now I have a part of him with me always. Last night, as it may be the last night that I can do this, I got a part of him tattooed on me.

Here is Jen the tattoo artist doing the tattoo (we met her at Pride on Saturday)


And here is the finished product:


On my ring finger you can see a date. It is the date that Jenn and I exchanged vows. I can very often be caught without my rings on (I don't sleep with them, and sometimes I am not awake enough in the morning to remember to put them on) so now my ring finger will never be really naked. The date is 1-11-03. 1-11-08 is the day that Blue was born, so the date is important to me for two huge reasons.

With my other two tattoo's (but not Blue's, I love his) I had immediate regret. I did with the stars too. Last night I was moaning and complaining about how big they are, which is bigger than I imagined them to be. But this morning I woke up and looked at them with a huge smile on my face. Orion will be with me always. I felt kinda rock star-esque. I put on my ratty denim crops and a tee-shirt with a skull on it and headed out for the IUI. I felt great. And as I have not been feeling all that great lately, very not Heidi for quite awhile, it was very nice to have that swing in my step again!

Now of course Jenn was not left out. After we lost Blue her theme song became Stronger. Now while all the lyrics don't apply "That that don't kill me can only make me stronger" certainly did. When I started talking about getting another tattoo she started to contemplate what she wanted, cause it just wouldn't be fair if I had more than her! I told her to get the Japanese symbol for strength, she didn't like that idea, but it gave her the idea to look at celtic knots. She found one she likes, and looked forward to the day I gave the greenlight for new tattoos!

Here she is getting hers done (note that the needle isn't on her skin as I can't look while that is happening!)


The finished product (not a great picture as it is from my camera phone)


And one of her ring tattoo:


I'm happy. And I can honestly say I was most afraid of the pain from these two tattoos, and they hurt the least. I barely felt the one on my finger, and the stars only hurt the last 2 minutes she was doing them. Jenn's arm hurt a lot she said, but Jen (tattoo artist) went over the tattoo five times, (outline, fill in, shading, orange color, blue color) so I don't doubt how much it hurt!!